"La Collectioneuse" is a song on Charlotte Gainsbourg's album, IRM. Beck wrote and produced the entire album.

The song builds from a circular piano riff turning into a dramatic orchestra section (which reminds me of "Lonesome Tears" in a way). At the end of the song, Charlotte reads the words to poems by Guillaume Apollinaire, a French poet. He only lived from 1880-1918. The lines here are from the poems "Alcools" and "Le Guetteur Mélancolique."

In one interview, Charlotte talked about how Beck and she wrote songs together. She claimed he did all the lyrics, but she would bring ideas and things. "I could show him poems by Apollinaire. I was searching for things. I was 'a collectionneuse' - he saw me with bags full of papers, notebooks, books. I was a bit panicked, wondering, 'What am I bringing (to the table)?'"

So it sounds like this was at least one of the ideas she brought--a collector with all her things. Certainly Beck is a bit of a collector himself, so he could relate.